Method and system for motivating and monitoring hand washing in a food service or related environment

ABSTRACT

A method and system for getting people to wash hands monitors whether or not people wash hands. The method and system involve educating and cultural changing food service environments to get people to wash their hands more frequently and more thoroughly. The method and system further improve compliance with established protocol.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The problem of insufficient hand washing in food service and medical industries is pervasive. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, norovirus is the leading cause of disease outbreaks from contaminated food in the US. Infected food workers cause about 70% of reported norovirus outbreaks from contaminated food. The food service industry can help prevent norovirus outbreaks by making sure that food service workers practice proper hand washing and avoid touching ready-to-eat foods, such as raw fruits and vegetables, with their bare hands before serving them. There are many other food borne pathogens that are spread by lack of or improper hand washing.

The CDC also notes that, “Of outbreaks caused by infected food workers, 54% involve food workers touching ready-to-eat-foods with their bare hands. Observations of food service workers have shown that they practice proper hand washing only 1 of 4 times that they should. It is unclear as to how many food service workers do not wash hands frequently enough, however data suggests this to be a major problem.

The effect of these problems in food service is food borne illness that range from mild stomach distress and common cold to life threatening infection, which in some cases results in death. In the case of the medical industry, lack of handwashing compliance results in the spread of hospital acquired infections (HAI's) which affects 2 million people per year at a cost of $50 Billion.

THE CHALLENGE

Getting people to wash hands is a complex task with many components. Monitoring whether or not people wash hands is even more complex. Education and cultural change are needed to get people to wash their hands more frequently and more thoroughly. Present day methods and technology exist but additional technology is needed to further improve compliance with established protocol.

In the case of food service, there are several types of businesses that need to be addressed: fast food restaurants, fine dining restaurants, delicatessens, cafeterias, and supermarket food service areas including the deli, bakery, meat, poultry and seafood departments, prepared foods and kitchens. Employees may move between different areas within these establishments, making tracking and monitoring more difficult.

A SOLUTION

The system described herein is designed to address the foregoing challenges and has novel, powerful concepts and technologies. The methods for achieving compliance in healthcare are different from those needed in food service. The first discussion will be for food service and the second will be for the medical industry.

The system disclosed herein is able to determine when a person is at a hand washing sink and whether they have complied with the established handwashing policy and procedure. Specifically, the CDC recommends a specific procedure for washing hands in the food service industry which includes wetting hands, applying soap, scrubbing for 20 seconds then rinsing and drying. The system described herein monitors handwashing by integrating several different technologies to verify compliance with the established procedure. Hand washing in these environments typically involves water from a hand-washing sink and soap from an independently supplied soap dispenser. The system disclosed herein uses various technologies to monitor and report the use of the water supply, the use of the soap dispenser, the presence of a specific employee and the correct sequence, timing and frequency of hand washing actions.

DETECTING WATER USE

Various methods are employed to detect the use of water in the hand washing process including one or more of:

-   -   Sound pattern recognition to listen for running water and the         sound of scrubbing hands.     -   A water faucet or attachment to the water tap that transmits a         signal, through wired or wireless radio, acoustic or optical         coupling, or some other communications technology, to the hand         washing monitor indicating in real time if the water is running         and what temperature it is.     -   A drain water flow and water temperature monitor to further         indicate whether water actually went down the drain, in what         amount, and at what water temperature.     -   Visual (camera), optical, infrared, or laser detection of hands         positioned under the tap or water flowing from the tap.     -   Server integration—Where water faucets, sinks or systems already         transmit their data to a server, the hand washing server may         interface with the water faucet, sink or system server to share         data.

DETECTING SOAP USE

Various methods are employed to detect the use of soap in the hand washing process including one or more of:

-   -   Visual (camera), optical, or infrared detection of hands         operating the soap dispenser.     -   The soap dispenser or an attachment to the soap dispenser         transmits a signal, through wired or wireless radio, acoustic or         optical coupling or some other communications technology, to the         hand washing monitor indicating in real time if soap was         dispensed.     -   Server integration—Where soap dispensers already transmit their         data to a server, the hand washing server may interface with a         soap dispenser server to share data.

IDENTIFICATION

The person washing their hands is identified by any of a number of methods or combination thereof including facial recognition through the use of a camera, badge recognition visually (via camera) or through some other technology e.g., radio or RFID, voice recognition through the use of a microphone, biometrics utilizing a finger or thumb print, keypad entry of a PIN number, or other personnel identification technology. A video and photographs may be taken and processed in real time or stored for future review and analysis to confirm identity and assess procedural compliance.

ADDRESSING FREQUENCY

The foregoing hand washing monitor system is able to confirm compliance with the established procedure but it cannot drive hand washing frequency. The CDC also recommends people working in the food service industry wash their hands at the start of every shift and at least once every hour. A further disclosure of the hand washing system described herein is a method of driving people to wash their hands more frequently to comply with the CDC recommendations.

The system disclosed herein introduces a novel method to increase hand washing frequency by using a “team approach” whereby a computer monitor lists when people are scheduled to wash their hands. The monitor is visible to all the workers in a given area so they can all see who needs to wash their hands to remain in compliance, and to help each other remain in compliance in the event someone doesn't see their notice to wash, etc. A scoring algorithm is used to rank both individual and team hand washing compliance performance. The monitor also lists who is at the sink washing their hands so cheating is reduced or eliminated. This mechanism serves several key objectives: to notify employees when they need to wash, to deter cheating the system, and to motivate compliance through social pressure of the team.

Competition to improve hand washing compliance and frequency between various areas or departments within the restaurant or store is also accomplished by ranking and displaying the scores from continuous analysis of the hand washing data collected by the monitoring system described herein. This competition is also extended to other stores within a geographic area, etc.

Finally, the system is capable of incorporating event-based triggers which are supplied to the hand washing system. For example, on return from a break, policy requires the employee to wash hands again before resuming work in food preparation. Such events may be communicated to the hand washing system to be included in the existing tracking and reporting framework.

COACHING

A novel feature of the system described herein is to have an alphanumeric display to prompt the user through the handwashing sequence. This mechanism provides real-time coaching on proper handwashing technique including real-time feedback to users on appropriate sequence and timing of wetting hands, applying soap, scrubbing hands and rinsing. Early data show that quality of handwashing is significantly improved when such coaching is applied during hand washing.

COMPLIANCE

Handwashing data is collected to monitor compliance and provide diagnostic information to address behavioral shortfalls in both the quality and frequency of hand washing. An additional novel feature is to have a mode whereby the display is disabled or indicates the system is “out of order” but, unknown to the user, the system still collects hand washing data. This mode can be used by management to periodically evaluate whether there has been a cultural or behavioral change. In other words, do users still wash hands properly when they believe they aren't being monitored?

MONITORING AND TAKING ACTION

Collecting this data has no purpose if it does not lead to taking action to improve sanitation. To enable individuals, teams, and management to take action in real-time, all hand washing data collected is pushed to a cloud server in real time for up to the minute reporting. Authorized users may view the data and reports from the cloud at any time on any connected device including cell phones, WiFi tablets and phones, computers, laptops, etc. Alerts may be transmitted to interested parties when certain events occur including multiple missed handwashes, etc.

INTEGRATION

An important and novel feature of the system is the integration with the establishment's time and attendance system. Information about an employee including when beginning work and ending work are transmitted automatically to the hand washing system from the facility's time and attendance system so they can be tracked. This ensures that real-time coaching and monitoring is relevant by focusing the system on the employees that are actually working on food preparation at any given time.

MEDICAL APPLICATIONS

The medical environment is different from food preparation environments in several important ways, but the need is no less critical. Persons undergoing medical treatment are already immunocompromised and vulnerable to infections that may be transmitted by employees who fail to practice sound hand washing methods. The system disclosed herein may be used in medical environments with the same efficacy as in food preparation environments with appropriate changes in policies e.g., the timing of hand wash events, and tracking e.g., the way in which employees are assigned to tracking stations.

OPTIMIZATION

Track soap dispenses to see if person gets multiple soap dispenses thereby indicating the amount of soap being dispensed may not be enough. Could then modify the soap quantity being dispensed resulting in less soap being used and more effective soaping levels of the hands.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a goal of the system of the present invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates a goal and tools of the system of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a plan view of the system of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a subsequent plan view of the system of the present invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates the details of the hand wash coach of the present invention;

FIG. 6 illustrates the hand wash monitor displaying performance of the present invention;

FIG. 7 illustrates the visual effects of the hand wash monitor of FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 illustrates the measurable results of the hand wash monitor of FIG. 6;

FIG. 9 illustrates the management/employee benefits of the hand wash monitor of FIG. 6;

FIG. 10 illustrates the electronic sensors of the hand wash monitor of the present invention;

FIG. 11 illustrates the battery details of the hand wash monitor of FIG. 10;

FIG. 12 illustrates the data transmission of the hand wash monitor of the present invention;

FIG. 13 illustrates the hand wash coach of the present invention;

FIG. 14 illustrates the employee activation keypad of the hand wash coach of FIG. 13;

FIG. 15 illustrates the greeting screen of the hand wash coach of FIG. 13;

FIG. 16 illustrates the wet hands instruction screen of the hand wash coach of FIG. 13;

FIG. 17 illustrates the apply soap instruction screen of the hand wash coach of FIG. 13;

FIG. 18 illustrates the scrub hands instruction screen of the hand wash coach of FIG. 13;

FIG. 19 illustrates the scrub hands countdown 15 to zero instruction screen of the hand wash coach of FIG. 13;

FIG. 20 illustrates the rinse hands countdown 5 to zero instruction screen of the hand wash coach of FIG. 13;

FIG. 21 illustrates the results screen of the hand wash coach of FIG. 13;

FIG. 22 illustrates system integration with store time clock displaying store attendance time clock for employee sign in of the system of the present invention;

FIG. 23 illustrates the transmission of employee sign-in date and time data of the store time clock of FIG. 22;

FIG. 24 illustrates team options of the hand wash monitor of the system of the present invention;

FIG. 25 illustrates the team play option of the hand wash monitor of FIG. 24;

FIG. 26 illustrates team play option with further instruction of the hand wash monitor of FIG. 24;

FIG. 27 illustrates employee hand wash results by employee ID of the hand wash monitor of FIG. 24; and

FIG. 28 illustrates employee hand wash results and further instructions by employee ID of the hand wash monitor of FIG. 24. 

We claim:
 1. A method for getting people to wash hands is a complex task with many components, comprising the steps of: monitoring whether or not people wash hands is even more complex; educating and cultural changing food service environments to get people to wash their hands more frequently and more thoroughly; further improving compliance with established protocol. 